An autobiography of Vincent Valentine
by Phoenix Down1
Summary: This is not for you.
1. An autobiography of Vincent Valentine (P...

Nocturnes and nightmares: an autobiography by Vincent Valentine  
  
Part One  
The Father and the Boy  
"This is the beginning of a nightmare."  
  
  
"Hearing your stories has added upon me yet another sin. More nightmares shall come to me  
now, more than I previously had. Now... please leave.... My story is not for you."   
  
--Vincent Valentine  
  
  
  
All the days gone by drift and sway in my memory. Under yellow sunshine and fresh  
bloom blossoms they waltz. And the wind passes. And the day passes. So do the nightmares pass.  
I remember when I was a boy.   
That was a long time ago, mind you.   
Please, if you wish to hear my story, then listen. If not, by all means, leave.  
Where was I? Ah. Yes.   
...I grew up in a place where the sunshine melted along the horizon underneath the  
gasoline slicked sunsets. It was a filthy, slut-infested, oil choked, beautifully ugly city. It was  
beautiful because it was mine.Midgar.Midgar, how I hate you. I'm not sure if you knew her, my  
Midgar, my city, my home. The music of my city rings with an iron knell as the train passes, and  
the whores smile, and the murder victims die.   
I'm sorry, I can tell that I'm being a little too morose for you, aren't I? I'm sorry.I am not  
a story teller.  
And I get lost between my memories and my nightmares.   
hey intersect....I haven't even told you what I am called, have I? Besides rude. Hm. A little  
humor. Didn't even smile did you?   
.....Well, I am not a comedian either.I am Vincent Valentine.The name means nothing to me. It  
was my father's name. He died well, when I was young. Perhaps I was twelve when he passed.  
No. I was thirteen. I remember that, it was near my birthday.But, anyway.Midgar? Yes. That's  
where I left off. That's what you came down here asking about. You wanted to know about my  
childhood... Well, honestly, perhaps my fathers death IS a good story to tell about my past. My  
deep past.   
My.... memories....   
I was thin for my age. That... is not uncommon. Many boys in my class were lanky,  
uneven, and awkward. I was also a bit unpopular, even stuck-up. I don't blame many of my  
classmates for disliking me back then. Now, as I see myself as a man, I laugh gaily and see why.   
I, to say the least, was given everything I ever wanted as a boy. I was privileged, selfish,  
stubby, and unkind to my classmates. I never knew the latest trend, and never played sports games  
fairly.   
  
  
~  
"Vincent, you can't hog the ball!"  
"Why don't you just come here and take it from me then, hm? Or are you to WEAK and too  
STUPID to just walk over here and take it from me?"  
"That's not how you play the game, Vincent!"  
I, the black haired boy spun around on heel, and snarled to the fair-faced and dirty  
captain-of-the-kickball-team-player. That boy's name was Samael, the closest thing that the thin  
and young boy I was had to a friend. Samael was relatively popular, with a small knot of friends  
that clung to his side much the same way the young me clung to the kickball out of the sheer  
malevolence that runs through young male adolescence's veins. Samael never turned down a dare,  
especially when it was a dare that mocked everything that what made this boy a man in a child's  
shoes.   
"Show me. Show me how your supposed to play the game, then, Sam." I sneered.  
"Shut the f-up, Vince. Just give us the damn ball back. Your not even playing." Quipped one of  
Samael's cronies.  
The knot of Samael's friends turned into a mini gathering of fight on-lookers. Some  
jeered, hollered, and rooted. Pre-teen girls screamed for the fair-haired and fair fighting Sam.  
All of them were calling for my spilt blood.   
I was young then, and like the other children that I knew, I lived in the wealthy area of  
Midgar, miles and miles above the slums. Like golden gods and goddess of Olympus, the  
wealthiest families basked in the rays of the sun by day, letting their shadow cast like eternal night  
upon the poor and unlucky.  
Much like the shadows that fell upon me as the crowd of young adolescence's surrounded  
me and bruised my ribs and mouth in taking their ball back.  
They didn't hurt me too badly. Body wounds are often easily remedied, however, my real  
scabs and scars beginnings are far underneath my skin. They bury themselves, these sharp  
knife-like splinters that call,  
"Mother!"  
"VINCENT, GOD! God have MERCY! What HAPPENED to YOU!"  
"I was in a fight, mother. I don't know what happened. Samael and his friends just ganged up on  
me for no reason."  
My mother spun around, smothering her cigarette butt into the kitchen sink and grabbing a red  
wine soaked rag and dabbing it onto my lip.  
A green bottle of burgundy red wine sat half empty on the sink with a ring of cherry red lipstick  
stuck onto the bottle's mouth.   
It was four in the afternoon.  
I always thought my mother was a beautiful woman. She was a lab technician for the  
Shin-Ra company. Not once in all the life that I had known her had her lips been not painted the  
most purest of blood red. Her brunette hair was a well kept pile of scythe ringlets upon the back  
of her head. Her white gown clung to her hips, and when she wore the silver framed eyeglasses,  
she was the goddess of beauty and intelligence.  
The home was never empty with her either. Even at one in the afternoon on a Saturday  
there were guests. She couldn't be alone. Ever. When my father was absent, as he often was, she  
would invite friends over. And they would drink, and she would smoke, and she would be the  
nucleus of all the attention from the men and women.  
"Vincent, baby, you feel better, now? Samael and his mom probably are just jealous, baby." She  
looked at me as she lit another long white poison stick. The blue smoke curled around her  
movie-star eyeshadow lids.   
"Yes, mother. Better. Father home?"  
She sighed, glanced over her shoulder to the mutterings in the other room, and mumbled under  
her breath,  
"No, baby-doll. Never. Your... father is never home."  
  
~  
  
You see, you are probably in wonderment in where I am going with this...*Sigh* I wonder  
as well. But, you know, that after noon, that.... that VERY afternoon, when my father was  
supposed to come home, he never did. I never saw him again. Back then, I myself didn't fully  
understand what exactly he did for a living. Now, I understand fully. Perfectly, perhaps a bit too  
well. I followed in his footsteps, he was a Turk.  
  
~  
  
"What's with your mom, Vince?"  
"...What do you mean?" I glanced at Raphael.  
"Why's she never like, ACT like a mom?"  
"What do you mean...?" I snapped.  
"I mean, she doesn't do mom things. I've never seen your mom clean, or do dishes, and stuff."  
"We've got people to do it for us. She's a lab technician, not a maid."  
"But I mean, that's not maid stuff. That's mom stuff. My mom does dishes."  
"That's because your mom doesn't leave the house, Raph. Your mom is--"  
"Shut-up!"  
Raphael and I sat side-by side as my mother and her cluster of friends laughed, talked,  
drank, smoked, and did things that rich people were supposedly supposed to do; walk around in  
heels upon expensive rugs, and wear rhinestones with black. And that was the evening, while I  
nursed my swollen lip, and amused my cousin, that I found out my father was dead.  
When the news swept the room as if it were the latest gossip, my mother swiftly left as so  
not to cause a scene when her mascara began to run.   
If she truly loved my father, I'll never know. This was the first that I ever saw her shed a tear over  
that man. Perhaps she did have a soul after-all.   
"Wonder whassup with that." Raphael muttered through his chubby face as he watched my  
mother half tare through the living room.  
"Shut up, Ralph."  
"Thats RAPH!" My cousin snapped as I stood to see what was the matter with my mother.   
~  
Raphael and I have shared an intresting, special, and harsh relationship over the years. I  
wonder what that fat... Anyway, I wonder what he is doing now if he isn't dead in the gutter  
someplace. Probebly a heart-attack that did him. Looks wise, he looks exactly like me if I had  
consisted my life diet on pig meat and twinkies.  
But I digress... my mother...   
~  
When I walked into the north corridor, I saw a trembling, lost, and weeping creature  
crissed and crossed by the harsh shadows of thick walls. She cried, and choked while covering her  
fingers with red lipstick as she gnawed upon her hands. As I walked in upon her most feeble and  
private moments, (soon to be accompanied by a mob of well-wishing phony friends) she tangled  
me in her thin, well tanned arms, and whined,  
"Oh, baby, my baby-doll, Vinnie...!"  
"Whats wrong, mummy?"  
"Vinnie...! Gaaawwwddd....my... god!" She wept and croaked with the oddest of noises, her neck  
straining and her painted mouth streatching, showing off lipstick stained teeth.  
"What, mummy?" I implored, not really thinking that it could be much. Perhaps someone broke  
some china again. She reacted much like this. Drama queen. My mother.  
"Your... your FATHER!"  
"What, mother, what about him?" Perhaps it was more serious than china.  
"He's... he's been shot. Baby. Shot. H... h...hospital."  
~  
  
He died that very night. 


	2. An autobiography of Vincent Valentine (P...

"I don't care what you're doing, so much as the idiotic way you're  
doing it..."  
--Vincent Valentine  
  
Nocturnes and Nightmares: A autobiography by Vincent Valentine  
(An interview with Vincent Valentine conducted and re-written by Phoenix Down)  
Part Two  
Blues in the lowlands  
This is the beginning of a nightmare.  
  
Your back. I didn't think that you would return. I suppose that means that you are interested in what I have to say. I suppose that in that I should continue where I left off. Now… where was I?… My father, you say? Oh yes. Thank you.  
He was dead. My father was dead. I stood beside him, in that quiet hospital room in Midgar, and saw that he was dead.   
I did not look at all like my mother. I looked like him. Black, wired short hair, eyes the color of the blood in the setting sun, and olive skin palled with a pale tint.   
But now, he was colder than I, and his skin was quickly becoming like wax, and the nurses came in to cover him with a sheet, say, "I'm sorry, oh god, I'm sorry, kid." and wheel him away.  
I still stood in that empty room after they took him out. I'm not sure why.   
I'm sorry. I told you in the first part that the last I saw my father was a while ago, I meant alive. The last I saw… SAW him was in that hospital room.  
I'm not sure where my mother was then. I THINK I heard her sobbing out in the hall underneath the buzz of florescent lights. That hum that they make… it seemed as if they were the only angles that we had with us as my father passed.  
He was shot on the job. He was a Turk. I did tell you that already.  
We went home. We went to the funeral on a sunny day where the clouds were thick, white, and lumpy.   
My mother hadn't changed since he died. She still carried on with dinner parties every night and sleeping during the day. Not doing the dishes, or things that, according to my cousin, Raphael, mothers do. That much is… true. She is not, nor ever was or will be, a mother.  
During the days that passed, I found myself becoming more and more empty in the wake of my fathers death. No, I was not popular in school. Samael and I were friends and enemies, but I slowly found no malevolent joy in ruining the kickball game. I simply did nothing. Not even my schoolwork.   
~  
  
Samael and I sat beside each other on a silent, pensive recess. His strong, long fingers curled around a kickball, idly fingering it as he stared out, watching the other adolescences laugh, play, fight, and talk.  
"Whats going on in that deep, dark, mind of yours, Vince?"  
"Hm." I grunted, coiling my arms around my knees and lowering my chin. "Nothin' much. He wasn't much of a father, you know? My dad."  
Sam said nothing at first in reply.  
"Sorry…" He simply said.  
"You know, it seems like… seems, like there is nothing for me here. Anymore. Maybe I should just leave."  
Sam laughed uneasily and looked at me with a spark of humor.  
"Don't go, man, your being overly dramatic. So, your old mans dead, get on with your life, you know, you got school, and everythin'."  
"But I just don't want to stay HERE."  
"So…" Samael started as he bounced the kickball.  
"Then go. I mean, if you really want to. So, where would you go, then? Out of the city, out of Midgar, where?"  
"Yes, probably. No, I don't know. I don't think it matters."  
"Yeah, it does. Where would you go? Everything's in Midgar. Everything that's anything, anyway."  
I sighed.  
Sam stood up.  
"Listen, Vince, you gotta cheer up, man, want to come and play a game of kickball?"  
"No." I said flatly. He pretended that he was about to throw the kickball into my face, but I didn't move. I didn't care.   
"Fine, then, sulk all you want. I'm going to play kickball."  
His back turned to me, and I could feel my eyes boil. They burned as tears churned, as my face turned a hard pink. And I cried. And I cried. And I cried.  
A small hand touched my shoulder, and someone sat down beside me. I did not look up from my folded arms and bend up knees. I didn't want, whomever it was, to see my countenance lined with tears, folds from my shirtsleeves, snot, and my swollen beat red eyes.  
"Vince, you ok?"  
"I'm fine." my muted voice mumbled into my arms.  
Whomever it was still sat there.  
"Want to go play kickball?"  
"NO for FUCKS SAKE, Sam! I don't want to play kickball, ok? My father JUST died, ok, GOD-oh. Sorry." I looked up while rubbing the salt away from my eyes to see Delilah, a fellow classmate who I never truly knew anything about besiding that she was always especially gentle, and overly softhearted for her own good.   
"Sorry about your dad."  
"Yeah, thanks."  
~  
Delilah… I'm sorry, I don't remember her very well. Except I remember her BEING there. What she looked like…? She was not very attractive, but not unattractive either, simply not memorable. She had short, very short brown hair, and was built flat-chested and never dressed particularly well. We did get along, not many DIDN'T like her. But she didn't have many friends either. I remember her laugh being particularly loud.   
~  
"Uhm, will you be ok, then, if I go?"  
"Yeah. Fine." I grunted. She nudged herself closer to me and laid her hand upon my arm.  
"Hope you feel better." She whispered before she ran and left.  
~  
That was it. That was the last time I was ever at school before I went back and joined the Turks. But that was later, MUCH later. I very much so regret dropping out of school. Truly… heh, truly I have no education beyond eighth or ninth grade. I think that I hide it well. Now, I do read. Perhaps that is why people take my intelligence for more than what it is.  
That night I went home and packed my things. I stole a stash of gill from my mother who kept it in her snuffbox, and went upon my way.   
When I first left it didn't seem that I was going anywhere seriously. I honestly thought that I would come to my senses in a couple of house and be home before dark. But before I realized what I was doing, I was into the slums of Midgar underneath the plate, never to return and see the light of the real sun for a few years to come.  
I think… I think that my head hurts, and I need to rest. If you wish to hear more, why don't you come down here tomorrow?   
Maybe I'll have more stories for you then.  
Maybe I won't. 


	3. An autobiography of Vincent Valentine (P...

"Too much love is the opposite of despair. An overpowering love may consume you in the end."   
--Vincent Valentine  
  
Nocturnes and Nightmares: A autobiography by Vincent Valentine  
(An interview with Vincent Valentine conducted and re-written by Phoenix Down)  
Part Three  
Blazes and Firearms  
This is the beginning of a nightmare.  
  
I don't feel like talking anymore. I don't know why you keep returning down here night after night. Don't you fear for your safety around me? ... I would, if I were you. Perhaps that is why I take you for the fool that you are.  
You don't know fear.  
I'll tell you something. Something dark and secret and kept in my memories... my nightmares.  
I know fear.  
Real fear.  
The fear that is huge, black, and waiting. Always waiting. And watches you, in it's silent ways, coiling it's claws along the floors. And fear is patient. It is waiting.  
It waits for you.  
You see that hallway?  
Yes, that dark one.  
You can't see the light at the end of that hallway.  
Fear is in there, in those shadows that keep shifting.  
If you weren't such an ignorant and selfish fool, it would have eaten you instead of me.  
And I wouldn't keep having these nightmares.  
  
Fine... I will tell you more... Now, where... where did I leave off? Are you... shivering?  
Good, that is a much more sensible attitude to have. Where was I? oh, yes. I ran away and dropped out of school. I just turned thirteen. I didn't know where to begin, I was young, and afraid, and threw myself into a whole new environment.   
The lower plate of Midgar is like hell is to heaven. Hell is a dark reflection, a shadow, and gives heaven meaning. That is like the lower half of Midgar. It is hell. It is dark, and dirty, and vast. It is a cesspool, a slum, and a garbage heap. All of it's inhabitants are either dying, ill, or have the morals of a devil. But they can not help it. There is one thing that the people of Midgar have in common: it is the notion that they were all built and born to survive, and they will do anything to accomplish this.  
That is why there are whores in Midgar. That is why they would sell you the very shirt of their back if they could talk you into it. The name of the game is survival, and money.  
Of course, I was a stupid, pampered, spoiled brat then, and knew nothing.   
I came close to getting killed so many times. But often the ignorant and the young are the lucky ones.   
The first night that I was away from home, I was very hungry, and didn't know how to go about getting food without spending little or no gill. So, I begged, but that got me nowhere. Then, I stole, and that got me nearly killed and I didn't get to eat the fish and apples that I stole. And before I knew it I was wandering into worse and worse sectors.   
I found myself passing by gutter corpses that smelt of hundred year old whiskey, rotting hot dogs, and piss. I walked by the wide eyed women whom wore torn fishnet stockings and plastic smiles. I was looked at by hungry expression on men who are looking for ANYONE worth any value... thirteen year old male children could definitely be profitable.  
And when the FEAR ate me, swallowed me whole, I ran. I ran past cracked out beggars, and angry, insane alcoholics and oil slicked streets. But it did me no use, the abyss of hell was getting deeper and darker, and the faster and longer I ran, the taller the walls seemed to get, and the more dangerous my surroundings became.  
I was alone.  
Hell has many levels.  
~  
"Hey, baby! Heeey, little boy, aren't you out past your bed time? I bet you know what a clit is, kid, baby! Want to come out and play with me?"  
"Hey, kid! You need some shit, I got all of it, dust, pump, shoot, your call, I got it... name the price."  
I couldn't keep running. My breath was getting too short, and no matter how frightened I was, I couldn't run forever. Tears were pouring, rain was pouring, my broken heart was pouring wet. I was exhausted, and afraid. Everything seemed to keep getting darker.  
Even when it was pitch black.  
"You OK?"  
For a second I thought Delilah was there.   
I looked up, it was Delilah's voice, and it was Delilah's face, but it wasn't.  
"Jesus, look at you, kid. You look like you just seen a ghost, or had a nightmare or something."  
A tall woman stood before me and lit a cigarette. She wore a bee costume, with her mouse brown hair done up and thick make-up painted across her thin features.  
"No. God. Uhm, I think I'm lost."  
"You sure are. You realize what part of town your in? Young teens shouldn't be around here. Especially ones like you. Times changed I guess. They keep getting younger. I hope your not looking for this place, are you?"  
"What place?" I asked blankly.  
She gestured behind her with the hand that held the cigarette.  
"Honey-Bee Inn, I work there. Hungry?"  
"Very." I blurted out before I could say anything else.  
"You look it, come on in, I'll tell Boris your with me. I'll get you a glass of water or something. I have a daughter about your age. Guess that's why I'm a softy." She smiled.  
As we neared the entrance of the bordello, she dropped the smoke and smothered it with her heel. A huge man in a suit let us both in, eyeing me as she nodded that it was all right. Pink neon lights in the shape of women and black and yellow bees greeted us as we opened the door, along with the sound of hormone driven men lining up outside to get in. All of them hollered at the woman who looked like Delilah dressed in a tight, busom boosting bee costume.  
She didn't pay attention to them.  
"I hate and love this job. So, what's your name?" She asked as we walked past a room full of doors. We headed into the furthest, ill lit one.  
"Vincent."  
"Cute. I'm Lilly. So, what do you want? We got... a jar of mustard, some crackers, whip cream, and... uh, a half eaten basket of chili cheese fries."  
"Uh... I'll take the fries."  
"OK. Well, it's your stomach. Bon appetite."  
"What?" I looked at her as she handed me the basket that she took from the fridge.  
"Bon appetite, means, uhm, 'have fun.'"  
"Oh."  
"Yeah." She said glancing away and hoisting herself up on the sink and sitting down. The akward pause made itself present as I ripped apart the fries and crammed them down my throat before I could taste anything rotten.  
"Where are you staying tonight?"  
I shrugged. I didn't know, and my mouth was full.  
"Oh."  
"Are you all alone, or what? What's your story, Vincent?"  
I swallowed,  
"No home, no parents... no... food."  
"Oh. Uhm, I guess you could stay here, if you want, you have a job yet?"  
"No." I said, almost sounding proud.  
"Want to be my assistant?"  
"Uhm." I paused, looking around, "I don't know. I... I'm just sort of wandering, you know? I sort of want to leave Midgar. I've spent like one night here, and, I know I don't want to go home. Fact is, I don't know HOW to get home. I was hard getting here in the first place. I had to PHYSICALLY climb down here and--"  
"YOUR from the top plate? Are you... INSANE coming down here?!" She folded her arms across her wide busom and shot a glare at me so cold that I felt my toes freeze and tighten.  
"Do you know how DANGEROUS it is here? Do you know how to SURVIVE, are you stupid! GOD, if my daughter came down here, I'd KILL her!"  
I swallowed.  
"Who's your daughter?"  
"Hm? Delilah. I don't know. She lives with her dad. A better life. Listen, Vince if you can, get out of here. I'll leave my door open for you. I got to get back to work. You can stay if you want a job, but your not my kid, I'm not making you do anything. I just don't want to find you dead in the gutter, OK? Get a job, or get out of here. Go home if you can. I'm... a mom, I know these things... And, uh, Boris will hate me for telling you this, but if you need a place to stay, anytime, come and find me, OK? God, I've become so soft..." She sighed, smiled at me quietly, and unfolded her arms as she slid off the counter.  
She wrapped her arms around my neck, I was a little dumbfounded in what just happened.  
"OK." Was all I said.  
I stayed at the Honey-Bee Inn that night, trying to fall asleep under the grunts and groans from the other rooms.  
At least my bed was warm, all night I was thinking about what it would be like trying to find a dry spot on the streets to sleep.  
But it wasn't the most comfortable night in the world; I had a strange dream that plagued my mind that night. The dream seemed to have infected me, and poisoned my blood, for I couldn't get the images out of my head for weeks to come.  
I think it was a nightmare.  
In my nightmare, which was the prelude for many to come, my father was alive.   
I remember he was simply looking at me, the way he never did. His eyes were kind and his hands were not stained with the blood from his job. But eerily, his eyes were kind, but dark. His face reminded me of my own; like staring into a looking glass, darkly.  
He said,  
"Son, my son, why have you forsaken me?" He said this to me in my dream.  
"Father, I trusted you, and it was you who left me! I'm still here, papa…"  
"No…" He said. "No, you are not my son!"  
And I turned around, in my dream, in my nightmare, and behind me was a mirror, only staring back at me was not the face that I knew. It was a creature, much like the creature that fear is. I, the creature, had mighty wings, one arm made of steel, and fangs like the devil.  
What was frightening was not the dream inherently, but what I felt like when I woke up.  
I didn't feel human. Not in the least.  
And I felt emptier than I ever had before. The blackness and the creature of fear and depression were setting its talons into me. Into my neck, drinking my blood like the dirty vampire that those emotions are. I felt that it was all so slow. Waiting. The darkness is waiting for me… It waits for you, too.  
I wiped the cold sweat off my brow, slid off the bed, and realized that no one, not even Lilly, was awake yet. It must have been very early in the morning. I picked up my things, raided the fridge, and set off once more in the shivering and waking Midgar.  
I didn't know then where I was headed, but before I knew it I found myself outside the gun shop, waiting for it to open.  
Yes, I was too young to PURCHASE a firearm, but not too young to look for a job.  
~  
I spent several years living in the upper room of that gun shop, working underage and under the table. But I became very proficient in all sorts of firearms at that early age. Besides, the owner became more of a father to me than my real father ever was.   
Come back tomorrow, and I promise you there will be more. 


	4. An autobiography of Vincent Valentine (P...

"My power is as vast as the plains, my strength is that of mountains. Each wave that crashes upon the shore thunders like blood in my veins."   
  
Nocturnes and Nightmares: An autobiography by Vincent Valentine  
(An interview with Vincent Valentine conducted and re-written by Phoenix Down)  
Part Four  
The dream of manhood  
This is the beginning of a nightmare  
  
Your… here again. Thank you. Thank you for continuing to come back and keeping your promise. I think that this is one of my 'good days,' and talking to you, helps me. No, I am not ever going to leave, however, anytime soon. I still have yet to rectify all the things that I did. I have still to plunge myself into these… nightmares. Talking about the past re-awakens some demons I have yet to face, but, as I learn in this deep dark prison, the sooner I fight these demons and suffer these nightmares, the sooner perhaps I can leave this hell and enter purgatory. And I dream of heaven.   
I promised you more stories, and I will tell them. I remembered where I left off. I had just left the night at the Honey-Bee Inn, where I met Delilah's mother, Lilly, I suffered the first of many nightmares. As I waited that morning for the gun shop to open, the nightmare was still real and touchable in my mind. It remained so for quite a while. In the times where I was alone, and awake, the beast in the nightmare would come and visit me. Sometimes it would come and gnaw at my flesh, wanting to be inside my bones.  
I did get the job at the gun shop, and it happened without a whim. The first day, right as the owner walked in, he asked me what I was doing at the doorstep. I told him that I wanted to work here, he told me to come in and start.  
He said he was a real good judge of character, and I seemed like the most honest, hardworking, and dependable individual he ever came across in this part of town. My age, he said, is not a problem. He didn't care as long as I showed up and did what I was told. His name was Ted, but everyone called him Knuckler, on account that he claims that his knuckles are world famously sharp.   
For the most part, I called him Ted.  
My other co-workers were Silk, Paranoid Tim, Bomb (Da Bomb), and The Jesus.  
The nickname that they gave me was Vamp, as in, Vince Vamp.  
They said I had eyes like a vampire.  
~  
"You got that shell for me, Vamp?"  
"No, I can't find it."  
"Where's Silk?"  
"Out in the back, trying out that new shipment of glocks we got coming in."  
I wiped a long black lock of hair off of my thin cheek.  
"This is a nice one, where'd this come from?" I asked finding a very old, antique rifle down off a high shelf in the stuffy side room.  
"That's Knuckler's, he'd kill you if he saw you touch it." Bomb said flatly.  
"Really?" I let a sweeping knife grimace touch my lips. "You think he'd kill me, huh?"  
"Put it down, Vamp, I know what your tryin' to do. You know you can't afford to get yourself fired."  
I let my hands glide across its well-crafted barrel, and over its ornately decorated pieces. It must've been one of the best-made guns in the world, and I have yet to see it's equal to this day.  
How badly I wanted to shoot it.  
How badly I wanted it to be mine completely. It's destructive power, It's… it's strength.  
  
*Note from the author:  
At this point Mr. Valentine began to shake badly. He stopped talking so I asked him what was wrong. He didn't respond, and I stopped recording. As I was about to leave, he shuddered in a raspy breath, "No, don't go, oh, god, I'm sorry. I can get a handle on myself, oh, oh, god, I'm sorry, I won't hurt you, I am not a beast, I am not human, now, but I am… don't go. Lets just not talk about the… guns."  
So we changed subject.  
I thought I saw a twitch in his eyes, and his good hand seemed to look uncontrolled and claw like. His breath was very heavy and he stared at me greedily.  
  
…Sorry. I just can't… talk about the guns right now. I think it would be too dangerous if we continued… along that subject. Considering my condition. Yes. My condition.   
You know, I used to write.  
And play classical guitar.  
I will tell you about that.  
I always wanted to write and play guitar when I lived with my mother. They were my two loves; sometimes they were the reason that I woke up in the morning. I had gotten classical guitar lessons all my life. I've even written songs before.   
I don't write stories. I write a little poetry, non-fiction, songs, and plays. Like I said, I am not a weaver of stories. In fact, I hate them and those whom tell them. Stories are pointless, frivolous, and stupid things.   
My job at the gun shop was very complicated. Knuckler and I balanced the checkbooks, ordered the shipments, and did all the paperwork and managing that was necessary.   
"After all kid," He'd tell me.  
"Out of all the stooges in the room, your 14 and not even graduated from high school, and you're the smartest one here."  
Some months, I was left to EVERYTHING alone. I would lock myself in the office all hours of the night, doing paperwork. When my eyes were strained and my limbs would tire, I would write poetry. Or sometimes play guitar.  
I didn't have mine, I left that at home when I ran away. I thought it would be too cumbersome to carry. But there was a very old, badly out of tune and in needing of new strings, acoustic guitar left in the office. The strings were so worn that I couldn't even get it close to being in tune. But it didn't matter. It made sounds and I could put my poetry to it. It kept me from going mad or badly maiming The Jesus.  
"Vamp! VAMP! Where the f-are you? What the f-are you doing? Get the f-up!"  
I slept in the top room of the gun shop. It was cold, the mattress was soiled and the ceiling leaked. I often took Lilly's offer in sleeping at the extra room at the Honey-Bee Inn.  
I disliked "The Jesus."  
But it was tolerable. I wound up working there for years.  
That's all for tonight. 


	5. An autobiography of Vincent Valentine (P...

"The gate of tomorrow is not the light of heaven, but the depths of the Earth."  
  
  
Nocturnes and Nightmares: An autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
(An interview with Vincent Valentine as re-written and conducted by Phoenix Down)  
Part Five  
The Jesus  
This is the beginning of a nightmare.  
  
Let's get right to it today, shall we?  
The years that I worked in the gun shop were the, literally, happiest years of my life. It was about from the age of thirteen to the age of twenty, or twenty-one.  
I was helping manage the store, playing my acoustic guitar, writing music, and getting to know lots of people. Eccentric people like the regulars in the gun shop as well as the girls at the Honey-Bee Inn, and all my co-workers friends. Bomb, one of my co-workers was also a musician.   
~  
"Yo, Vamp!"   
"Hey." I sighed as I straitened my black turtleneck and smoothed down my goatee. I stared into the cracked and foggy mirror, as I stood with the door open in the back of the store.  
"If I didn't know better… I'd swear you were gay."  
"Why do you say that?" I snapped.  
"Because, you take pride in the way you look. But, uh, listen, I think I got a gig for you."  
"Really? What do you mean?" I glanced over my shoulder.  
"Well, you play guitar right? And write your own music?"  
"Yeah, sure I do, Bomb, but I don't have a good instrument, and I can't afford a better one. Doesn't mean I'll play in public or anything."  
Just as I spoke, "The Jesus" and Silk passed by Bomb and I. The Jesus stopped, took a double take over his shoulder at us, and let a thin, long smile split his face.  
"Hey, hey hey, look who let the vampire out! Oh, got a hot date tonight with Silk, man, that's why you gotta look so FINE? Hey, baby, pop off your rocket or something, no?"  
"Shut the f-up man." Bomb shot back as The Jesus lit a cigarette and rested his hand on his wife-beater covered chest. Silk stood there near the door frame and said nothing.  
"Hey, no hard feelin', I was just joken', man, pullen' your chain, you know. But, damn, Vamp, learn to wear color or somthin'. I've never once seen you in ANYTHING but black sweaters, turtlenecks, shit. Guess that's why they call you, Vamp, no? So, what, you playin' a gig tonight or what?"  
"I don't know." I muttered. I didn't mind, "The Jesus" all that much, but out of everyone, he irritated me the most. He wasn't much older than me at the time, nineteen or so I'd say. Perhaps a little older. "The Jesus" always wore cut off shirts without sleeves, and worked out every day. His arms were plastered in symbols and tribal designs. Around his neck hung a long gold chain that caught the blunt of the dim, fluorescent lights.   
Silk, however, Silk was different. There is no way to justifiably describe him. I'm not sure what his real name is, (honestly, I'm not sure of any of my ex co-worker's real name, except Ted, AKA Knuckler.) Silk, though, was called Silk because he can take any thread of anything, and weave it. He was excessively obsessive compulsive. He counted everything he could find, from jars of thousands of bullets, to the number of light fixtures he had on the wall. His favorite things to do, were weaving, sewing, crocheting, and knitting. He could make anything out of anything as long as it was woven together. Once, for Ted's birthday, he wove him a shirt out of copper wire.  
"So, you don't know if your playin' tonight, eh? Heh he he…heh. God. Don't worry, if you don't play, I'm sure Silk will play with you, you know?"  
Bomb was a decent fellow, not very bright, but decent. He nearly broke "The Jesus" face on many occasions for making fun of Silk.  
Paranoid Tim was my other co-worker. I didn't know him well. He rarely left the back room. What I know about him is-is that he is the master of every firearm known to man.  
I hear that he keeps a rifle in his bed, and he has over seventy locks and bolts on his door.  
~  
When "The Jesus" and Silk left, Bomb and I wound up talking for a while. He convinced me to spend all my savings in buying a new classical guitar, (which I play better than acoustic) and go for the gig that he had set up for me in a run down coffee house. The gig was in about a week, and I spent the whole time practicing my songs and getting used to the new instrument and strings.  
I was very nervous my first night, but I got a round of applause.  
The night after was even better.  
The third night I was still swallowing vomit to keep it from coming up, but the applause was louder.  
The fourth night I convinced myself that I was getting the hang of it.  
"I never had a nightmare so beautiful before.  
She came into my dreams through the open window and door.  
I told myself, I told myself that I wasn't worthy for any more,  
Silly, silly little fucker.  
Silly, silly little lover.  
I love her, but I love the silence, too.  
I'll promise that these fears will stop, and instead I'll dream of you.  
Open up these closed up doors and let the people in.  
Maybe freedom is when you're a slave.  
It's freedom from freedom, when you live in a cave…  
I've never had a dream so ugly before…"  
I suppose the best genre you could classify my music, is folk. It's been years since I sang, however. I never had or needed a back-up band. It is just I, and my classical guitar. My voice when I sang was soft, like a gentle whisper.   
"She came in through the window, she came in through the sea,  
I told myself she didn't need me.  
Silly, silly little blood drop.  
Silly, silly little angry cop.  
I love the nightmares, but I love the silence, too.  
I can't promise that I won't stop, and instead I'll kill you.  
Open up these closed up minds and let the people come round.  
Maybe violence under these shadowed city plates,  
Is liberty when you don't know how to leave the city  
Tell me where,  
The freedom fares,  
And I'll tell you to sleep,  
And enter my nightmare."  
When I finished singing, the bohemian beat-nicks stood and cheered. (Or snapped, as it were.) I bowed my head once in thanks. As I raised my red eyes, in the crowed there were several faces that caught my attention. One of them I knew. It was Lilly, Delilah's mother. I thought that she was at work and wouldn't be able to see me play. The other was a knot of people that sat in suits without applauding, smiling, or drinking coffee.   
I took my guitar, stepped off the stage and approached Lilly. I felt the pulse of stares as the eyes from the cluster of suits studied my every move.  
"Who are they, why are they looking at me?" Were the first words I whispered to Lilly as I approached her.  
"That was soooo good, Vince! You don't even know-huh, who?"  
"Those guys. Round back. No- don't look at them! Who are they?"  
"Don't know. Look like the Turks."  
"What are they doing here? If it's them, we gotta go and get out of here."  
"Aw- why?"  
"Come ON!" I grabbed her arm and pulled her from the bubbling crowd, still feeling the touch of people watching me upon my spine.  
"Hey, you Valentine?"  
Just as we were on the threshold of the door, we were stopped. I turned around.  
"Who wants to know?"  
"Tough guy, eh? Hm."  
Before me stood a man that changed my life forever. I hate him now nearly as much as I hate Hojo. However, I love him more than any man.   
~  
I haven't spoken about this man to anyone. I'm not sure if I can continue. But I want to, and I must. This is the man who began my nightmares. My real ones. There are two kinds of nightmares in my life… There are the bad ones, and then there are the horrible ones.  
In the bad ones, I dream of Hojo, Lucrecia, my mother, and the chaos and beast within me. I can handle those. But the horrible ones, the… truly petrifying ones, I dream that I am happy.   
I dream that I still have the job at the gun shop, that I have a wife, a musical hobby, and three little girls. And that I am happy, that my wife is happy and so are my kids and everything is fine. Those are the dreams that I can't handle.  
Why?  
Because I wake up.  
And I realize that I am not fine, that there is no wife and three girls, and that… and that…  
  
*Note from author  
I apologize for the second interruption. At this point of the interview, for the first time, Mr. Valentine began to weep bitterly. I apologized to him for bringing up such matters, but he proceeded to tell me that he was sorry, it wasn't my fault, and that he was beginning to enjoy his time with me. It took him nearly a half hour to stop shaking and crying and to compose himself. It was a beautifully sad, pitiful, and disquieting experience to see Mr. Valentine in such shambles. Obviously, although, I am no physiologist and have no doctrines in anything, we are getting to the heart of his shadows.   
  
Yes, uhm, sorry… yes, we shall continue. Tell you about Lucrecia? No…. no… I haven't gotten that far yet. In… in due time I'll tell you about her…   
~  
  
"Well, let me introduce myself, I am Mister Ious."   
He was a sharp man. His face was equine and long, with sunken and sad green eyes. His smile was knife-like, stabbing his face for a flicker then flashing away. I could not pin point his age at all, not even if I tried. He had flecks of silver in his strait black hair that fell flat to his chin. He wore a strait black suit, however it was obvious that he was not at all in conjunction with the Turks at the far table whom still glared at me. I knew why, too.  
Know not what else to do I shook his hand.  
His hand was cold.  
"Let us step outside, shall we?" He gestured towards the door. Lilly grazed my face with an uneasy glance.  
It was quieter outside, but not by much. The air was metallic and cool. The faces outside seemed blank and empty. Even the distant roll of chatter seemed to be alien and gone.  
"Let me… get strait to the point, Valentine. Your talented. And I know you. Let me help you."  
Lilly stood stupidly and said nothing. However, both of us looked equally confused.  
"Are you with the Turks?" She asked.  
"Far from it." Mister Ious simply replied. I didn't trust his grin.  
"I…"   
"That's all right." He continued, cutting me off rudely.  
"You see, Vincent, you and I are more alike than you know. " He placed his arm around my shoulder, and turned away from Lilly-who-more than ever-looked confused.  
"I know about your father and who killed him. They are looking for you."  
"I don't care. Leave me-" I tore his arm off of me, and walked back to Lilly.  
"What was that all about?" She asked as we walked away. Neither one of us glanced back.  
"I have no clue."  
~  
We walked back to the Honey-Bee Inn. Back then; I thought that I was in love with her. I wasn't-well, no, in little ways I was. But then again, at that time, I wanted someone to look after me, and she did just that. Lilly. Really my first girl friend and nearly seventeen years older than me. Lilly took my virginity away… actually more like I gave it to her willingly.  
I loved it when she wore blood red lipstick.  
And I would see that man again. 


	6. An autobiography of Vincent Valentine (P...

S.O.S… A wireless code-signal summoning assistance in extreme distress, used especially by ships at sea. The letters are arbitrarily chosen as being easy to transmit and distinguish. The signal was recommended at the Radio Telegraph Conference in 1906 and officially adapted at the Radio Telegraph Convention in 1908. (See G.G. Blake His. Radio Telegr., 1926, 111-12  
--The Oxford English Dictionary  
...---...  
Nocturnes and Nightmares: An autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
(An interview with Vincent Valentine as conducted and re-written by Phoenix Down)  
Part Six  
Mysterious  
This is the beginning of a nightmare  
  
I know that you can't go through life without realizing that both fate and death have a sense of ironic and sarcastic humor. Mister Ious. Mysterious. An ironic, I'm sure on purpose, alias that he chooses for himself. Like so many people I know, I don't know his real name.  
He came back the following day to my work.  
~  
"Is… Mr. Valentine here?"  
"He's out back. Who're you?" Good old Bomb. He had enough sense to ask before just sending anyone out into the back of the store.  
"Tell him its Mister Ious."  
"Sure. Hang on." Bomb lumbered into the back stock room where I was taking inventory of the store.  
"Vamp. Some guy in a suit for ya."  
I dropped my pencil. I knew who it was.  
"What? I can make him leave."  
"No, no, its ok, Bomb. Uh, I'll be right there."  
"Oh, one other thing, Vamp. You seen Knuckler?"  
"No, why?"  
"Cuz' no one's seen him. That's all."  
Bomb turned and started to leave. I paused, and thought just how right Bomb was. No one's seen the boss in days.  
I went to the storefront, ducking my head on the dilapidated doorframe as if it were an instinct. The impeccably dressed and well-groomed man at the counter was striking against the dank, wet, and dingy store.  
"We need to talk." He said simply.   
I did not respond, and I did not want to go with him at first, as much as he admittedly fascinated me.  
We walked outside into the foggy and polluted underbelly of Midgar. We did not talk for the first half hour of our walk; all the while I was feeling uneasy and slightly frightened of him. Faces passed us by, many of them.  
I was feeling older and older the longer we walked. I then realized that I was no longer a child.  
And I remembered my nightmares.  
Suddenly, unexpectedly, and even sadly, he shattered the silent tension.  
"You don't believe in anything, do you? Not since your father died."  
I sighed. I felt violated. He seemed to know everything. A voice in my mind was sobbing and yelling in denial. Who is he? He doesn't know me!  
  
But he did.  
Somehow.  
"I believe in myself. That's about it."  
"There is something more to life. There is more to you than even you know."  
I responded with silence.  
"Listen, Vincent Lazlow Valentine, there IS more. MUCH more. You can have power. Just believe in what I have to say."  
We stopped, and I looked into his sunken jade eyes that were deep, long, and twisted like a labyrinth.  
"What?" I glanced away, and sighed aggregately.  
"Routine, ritual, death. All these squandering morons and losers, you don't belong here. They are all fighting to live, and do well; completely ignoring what is perfectly natural to them. Why is it that all religions only glorify only one aspect of natural humanity? It is natural for humans to hate, be sad, and kill. NATURAL. They only hurt themselves more by denying what their souls long for. Vincent, be my pupil. I beg you. You, I know, will understand me, my philosophies, and my teachings."  
"I…I don't know. Because it is right. There IS a good, and bad, and evil, and holy, and things in gray. They, we, we…we fight against the bad because it is the right thing to do, Mister… Ious."  
I started to back away, although I was curious. I backed away although in my chest a long dark finger reached out for him.  
The beast of fear roared, and its roar was black.  
"Murder isn't natural…" I muttered stupidly.  
Mister Ious seemed a little taller to me then. His sharp shadows split and rose against the crumbling brick walls in the ally way. His shadows were like grimacing towers, closing in on me.  
I stepped into an oily puddle and nearly tripped over a grimy soda can.  
"Oh. Oh. Yes. Yes. It is. Murder is very natural. As natural as death, even, Vincent. And there is more than one way to murder someone. Come, and drink blood with me… Drink the blood of a dead soul."  
"Your… your crazy, abso-fucking-lutly insane! Get away from me, you FREAK!"  
I tripped over a pop can and fell to my back. I scrambled as I got up and dashed out of the ally way, feeling like I just fell into a plunging delirious dream.  
I ran to the gun shop.  
My breaths were cut loose, short, and raspy.  
I'm not sure if he followed me.  
I stopped, and watched the flames rise like a phoenix.  
The gun shop was burning.  
Paranoid Tim, Bomb, The Jesus, Silk, and a dozen on-lookers stood nearly a half a mile back.  
The Jesus was swearing more than I've ever heard him before.  
"What HAPPENED!? Where's Knuckler?" I snapped at them, holding my pain-filled chest.  
"Don' know, Vamp. He's gunna be pissed, though, I'll tell you that. See that ass-hole standing there? He did this." Bomb glanced at Jesus.  
"No, no, I didn', man, you got it all wrong. Listen to me, Vamp! I didn't do nuthin'. I didn' see that gun powder barrel when I was lighten' my square."  
"Dumbfuck." I muttered. Ash was getting into my eyes.  
I think I cried because I was scared, too.   
~  
...---...  
  
Knuckler was pissed when he came back from whereever he was. But the gun shop wasn't finished. He, like a true entrepreneur, simply re-built. Sure, it wasn't the exactly the same, it was just different. We moved closer to the Honey-Bee Inn, and were much smaller than we once were. But we were just as successful. We were in a good area for firearm sales.  
For a few months I slept at the Honey-Bee Inn, but I didn't sleep well. It was not just the noise, either. Lilly was on my mind, so was Mister Ious. Every time I thought about him I got a queasy feeling in the recesses of my gut.   
Every day that I DIDN'T see him, I had nightmares.  
The days that I DID run into him, I was frightened, and angry, and I badly wanted to hurt him.  
Something held me back, however, and I realize it was myself who was calling.  
Mister Ious wasn't anybody, but, perhaps, a reflection of myself.  
Maybe he was someone.  
I don't know.  
I never told anyone about him.  
But Bomb saw him.  
Once.  
Maybe Bomb has a few demons himself.  
That's all Mister Ious was.  
A demon.  
Calling.  
Eventually, I was so worn out, unslept, and exhausted, I followed Mister Ious.  
Every man has a breaking point. We ran away together like mirrored scattered devils, retreating from the rising sun at midnight.  
When I began to listen to Mister Ious, things in my life were starting to go down hill. I started cheating on Lilly with a wonderful girl. Her name was Ariel. But she was too good for me. I sabotaged and poisoned both relationships. I started to stop playing music and was getting frustrated with my writing.   
One moonless night, I murdered my expensive, beautiful classical guitar.  
I smashed it to splinters. I haven't picked up a guitar since.  
It was in this low point that the Turks started coming around on a regular basis.  
They prowled around like starving ally cats, hunting down a mouse and playing with it before devouring it callously.  
I ducked, ignored, and ran from them often.  
Do you remember Sam? Samael, my old classmate. It was strange, fate, probably.  
But on an unassuming, typical, morning at the gun shop, he walked in for a brief moment in my life.  
Earlier that very morning, the Turks came by to glare at me and look at guns without buying them. They knew that my late father was a Turk. Because of that, I was a perspective member. That's why they often kept an eye on me.  
So, I was still a little agitated from the Turk encounter when Sam walked in.  
~  
...---...  
  
I was behind the counter, keeping an eye on register and gnawing on a piece of salty, tasteless, strip of beef jerky when he idly meandered in.  
I didn't even notice, or recognize him at first. It had been many, many years since I ran away.  
"Looking for something?" I grunted.  
"Huh, no, just look-Hey HEY, MY GOD, man!"  
"Excuse me?"  
"You… son of a fucking, BITCH!" Sam smiled and held out his hand. "It's me, Sam, Samael! Only now they call me Lucius."  
"Oh, HEY! Sam!"  
"Where have you BEEN, Vince?! All these years, all these FUCKING years, you know! And here, all along you've been hiding out in this dank place on the lower part of Midgar! Man! Back then I didn't think you were serious when you said you were going to run away!"  
I walked out from behind the counter and we embraced. I kissed him on the cheek.  
"Yeah… well." I uttered. "I'm doing ok. How are you?"  
Sam's bright masses of curly blond hair brushed back as he dug his fingers into them.  
"You know. We thought you were dead."  
I folded my arms across my chest and stared at the wooden, dirty planks of the floor.  
"Yeah. Well. I'm not… uhm, how's mother?" I felt the teeth and mouth of guilt closing itself around my head. Then, the memories returned. Depression. Guilt. I was dying. Mister Ious was killing me. He was right, there was more than one way to die. And like a red rose blossom in the cold, I was withering. I lied. I was dying. I only realized it then. I think that I was beginning to become delirious right then on that day, the day Sam returned and reminded me of mother. He told me of mother.  
"Uh… Vincent, she is… god, I don't know how to tell you this. Vincent. She's. Dead."  
"Dead?"  
….  
…  
..  
.  
Dead.  
...---...  
S.O.S  
...---...  
Save our ship.  
S.O.S.  
Save our souls.  
Dead.  
God save my soul, for I am a doomed and foul man  
...---... 


	7. An autobiography of Vincent Valentine (P...

"Chi Dara el Grande Delore?" ("Who will put an end to this great sadness?" From the Greek myth, The story of Echo)  
  
Nocturnes and Nightmares: an autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
(An interview with Vincent Valentine, re-written and conducted by Phoenix Down)  
Part Seven  
Samael  
This is the beginning of a nightmare  
  
This is getting difficult for me, don't you realize? What did you say your name was... anyway?  
That isn't your real name, why don't you use it?  
Anonymous.  
Names. Humans have debated over weather names do or do not have en effect on their petty, insignificant lives. Have I been drinking? No, I don't drink. I can't. Not now. Not since I had this bloody operation. Don't you get it? I'm angry. I'm always angry. I'm always pissed. And I hate... I HATE everyone. And everything. Especially me.   
Not one moment in my life was ever worth living. And I'm too afraid to kill myself.  
Why?  
Because what if I go to hell?  
Because I know exactly what hell would be like. They would be like the terrible nightmares I told you about. Not the bad ones, but the horrible ones.  
Where I'm happy.  
That's what hell would be like.  
Listen, and listen closely.  
I.... hate you.  
No, I don't just hate you.... I ... HATE you.  
I hate your questions, and I hate your fascination with me. I hate that you come down here night after night, and you don't have to, and you do anyway, I hate the way you are patient, I hate the way you listen, I hate the way you care and the way you don't care.  
I hate the way that you simply turn everything that was once me into words.  
Into letters.  
Into syllables.  
Into sound inside your head.  
Maybe whomever reads this will find me living inside their head.  
Infecting them.  
Word... by word.  
And there is me,  
Sitting there waiting. Simply waiting and staring inside their brain.  
Poison.  
Me.  
  
They couldn't get me out, even when they tried, because they dragged their eyes across these words. These very words. Like this one. Here. Isn't that funny? Isn't that so fucked up and funny?  
Aren't I fucked up?  
Fucked up and poetic. No. Don't shut off that recorder. I'm not finished for today. Not hardly.  
Were going all the way today, and if you try to leave I will... WILL stop you.  
You've gone too far to stop now. I won't let you.  
And YOU have too.  
You've almost reached the blood hungry minotaur in the center of the labyrinth.  
It will eat you.  
Where did we leave off? Don't look at me. Don't look at me like that. Shut up! GOD! ….  
….  
…Sorry.  
Sam. We left off with Sam.   
  
~  
  
"She's. Dead. JESUS!" I Spun around, and nearly fell to my knees.  
"Sh… you going to be ok?"  
"I'm. Fine."  
"It's not your fault, man. I mean, yeah, it was shitty of you to run away and everything, but you know, she had her own issues."  
I felt nauseated.  
"How's… Raphael?"  
"Raph? He's ok, he's doing his own bit." Samael tightened his voice as he stared at me. I turned, and tried to compose myself. Dead.  
"How did she…?"  
"…oh. Uh, Doctors tried to pin it on alcohol poisoning, but, dude, there was a noose around her neck and they found her dangling off the shower curtain rail."  
"Then why did they try and pin it on alcohol poisoning?"  
"Because they said that she drank so much, that she should've been dead before the rope snap-uh, well, you know. We know she-committed suicide. She was never really the same after your dad passed and you ran away."  
"God. I'm so sorry. I should've been there for her…"  
"Like I said, it's not your fault. Yeah, sure, you ran away, you had your own reasons, but man, she had some issues."  
I raised my eyes.  
"Don't talk about her like THAT!!!" I snapped coldly.  
He silenced himself as I felt the rage pulse uncontrollably like chaos in my face.  
The awkwardness grew as my rage tapered off.  
"So… uh,…" He started glancing off and shifting his weight.  
"What have you been up to?" I asked.  
"Magic."  
"What?"  
"Yeah."  
"No, I am going to school- studying magicite and it's properties. See, I'll show you. Pick a number, any number between… uh, one and 100."  
"13."  
"13? Why 13?"  
"My favorite number."  
"All right, then, 13." Sam then pulled out two small green and blue stones. Both were perfectly spherical and cold. He held the two together in his hands, and began to mutter with his eyes closed. A round golden halo surrounded him as the room darkened.  
As I glanced over my shoulder, I heard a loud snap. Behind me thirteen empty bullets in a jar suddenly became frozen. I took the jar off the shelf, and pulled out one of the bullets. It was ice cold, and covered in glass ice.  
Sam shoved his magicite stones back into his pocket.  
"Amazing. I never took much interest in magic. But I can use it, magicite."  
"Yeah, well, I don't know."  
"What are you doing in this part of town, anyway, Sam?" I asked, putting the bullet down.  
"Looking for you."  
"Looking for me?"  
"Yeah. I heard you were still alive and living down here. You can do much better you know, Vince. You don't belong down here with creeps runnin' around everywhere. Why don't you come to the Shin-Ra University with me?"  
That's exactly what Mister Ious said to me. Nearly in those exact words. I am better. I don't belong here. My head began to throb.  
"I don't have the money. And I haven't been to school in YEARS."  
"When'd you grow your goatee? I was thinkin' about doin' that myself. Are you ok? You look a little paler than usual."  
I touched my face.  
"I'm going to shave it off. Uh, yeah, I feel… fine."  
"Listen, I'm going to be around town for the next couple of days. I'll see you later, all right? We will get some coffee or something."  
"Yeah…. Sure…."   
He smiled, and left.  
I felt my legs buckle and fall limp under my weight. I caught myself on the counter. I wasn't sure what was wrong, or what was happening to me.   
I think that my arms went limp and I fell.  
I think that I fell into a dream.  
I think I heard my mother calling my name.  
It was my fault.  
It was all my fault.  
I deserve to be locked up for my sins.  
I am a horrible son.  
I killed her.  
I killed her.  
I killed her.  
And I'll kill myself.  
But not physically.   
I'm too afraid.  
I work and live in a gun shop.  
And I can't shoot myself.  
Fate is teasing me.  
I think I'm going mad.  
There is more than one way to die.  
There is more than one way to skin a cat.  
I'm a monster.  
I am the chaos.  
I am a vampire.  
I am dead.  
My mother is dead.  
My father is dead.  
And I should die. 


	8. An autobiography of Vincent Valentine (P...

"For that fine madness still he did retain  
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain." (Michael Drayton to Henry Reynolds, of Poets and Poesy.)  
  
Nocturnes and Nightmares: An autobiography of Vincent Valentine (As conducted and re-written by Phoenix Down)  
Part Eight  
Decending into hell  
This is the beginning of a nightmare  
  
Samael came back, often. Instinctively he knew that I was not mentally well, and only getting worse.   
Bomb knew, too. Together they were unobtrusively trying to help me. Samael found an old piano, and bought and restored it-giving it to me as an early Christmas present. He knew that I wouldn't play guitar again, but in his words, "Maybe you could give music another shot with the piano, eh?"  
I did find SOME joy in that.  
It took little time for me to learn it.  
But it was difficult for me to play after I began cutting.  
  
~  
"You going to put words to it?"  
"Maybe." I said as I took out a red pen, and corrected a note on the staff paper. "I sort of like the way it sounds with no lyrics."  
"I don't know, sounds a little, you know, dramatic."  
I didn't reply.  
"Aren't you hot? You know, I've never seen you in short sleeves, come to think of it."  
"No." I said, feeling my face flush. I didn't want him to see the scars on my upper left arm from cutting. I cut because the pain felt good. The punishment for my mother's suicide had to be harsh.  
"I'm fine." I snapped and began to play again.  
"If you say so." Samael sighed.  
~  
  
Mister Ious was also coming around more often, then, too. I've never seen him come around in the daytime. I then began to welcome his company and philosophies. I began to adapt them as my own. He rarely liked to see or talk to anyone other than me.  
He was the one who encuraged me to stop fighting the Turks' advances on me to join them. Eventually, I listened to them both. I was tired of fighting everyone else's oppressive opinions.  
  
~  
"Did you speak to them, today?" Mister Ious asked quietly as we walked along a solitary, winding road. His long fingers were gently gnarled behind his back. His long nose exhaled an extensively slow sigh.  
"Yes. I told them I would join. They were happy."  
"Good. You will do well. You won't have to live in these slums anymore. It's about time."  
"I… don't mind the slums." I quipped nearly tripping over a pair of filthy legs that stuck out from a cardboard box. He passed me a dead glare with his glazed over green eyes.  
"Stop lying to yourself."  
I didn't reply.  
"What's that on your left arm, Vincent?"  
I glanced to my shoulder, and saw nothing.   
He pulled at the chords on my black sweater, nearly tearing it off of my body.  
"Stop it! What are you doing?!" As I yelled and tried to push him off of me, my sweater tore, and there, all up and down my left arm were long pink scars, deep scabs, and freshly lit lines of blood.  
"WHAT have YOU been DOING to yourself!?" He snapped, throwing my torn sweater sleeve at my face.  
"Stupid CHILD! Cutting is for depressed teenage GIRLS! IDIOT!"  
"Shut up…" I sneered. I felt hot tears swelling into my eyes. My lips convulsed and curl.  
"We… may as well cut off your arm and put on a metal one, for all the good that you have done to yourself. Moron. Maybe that would teach you a lesson."  
I began to whiped the snot and tears onto my torn sweater sleeve.  
"I… can't help it. I can't help it. I need to do it. I have to. It feels good, it feels right. I deserve this pain."  
"Shut up." I said curtly and began to rub his head as if in thought. "I don't need to hear your blubbering. Maybe the Turks will straiten you out."  
  
~  
  
And they did, for the most part. The years of working at the gun shop really helped quicken my training in the Turks. I was one of them in no time. Samael, Paranoid Tim, Knuckler, The Jesus, Silk, Lilly, and most importanly of all, Bomb, wished me well the day I left the lower part of Midgar for good. Silk made me a red cape and mantel for a going away present. He also sent me the extra red strips of fabric in case I wanted them.   
After I joined the Turks, I vowed to myself that I would change.  
Change my attitude, change my disposition, change my hair, my goatee, change everything. Start over. Maybe these nightmares would stop.  
And I did. For a while there, everything was fine. I didn't even dream at all when I went to sleep at night.   
I even wrote and played music again. I had a poem and a song published.  
I stopped cutting, and rented an aparment. I shaved, and my clothes were new. The only thing I kept with me from my past at the gun shop were the clothes that Silk made me, and an old rifle Knuckler said I could keep.  
However, my co-workers were not nearly as likable as my old ones. A longhaired man named Tseng was my boss. And a gaffawing cow named Heiddeger was the head of us all. The other two Turk's names were Rude and Reno. Mostly the job was simple: do as you are told, even if that meant lying, stealing, and killing.   
Honestly, I didn't mind.  
Heck, what did I have to care about?  
If I didn't much value my life, why would I value anyone else's?  
They were considering a blonde haired woman for the empty Turk's position. I met her once, and I did not like her.  
I hoped they didn't hire her.  
My life was alright, even tolerable. Every night I would come home to an empty apartment. (Which is why I then took in a black ally cat and named her Dasha.) I would play on an eletric keyboard I bought, and there was nothing else. I couldn't have close friends except for anyone in the Shin-Ra company, on account that they would interfear with the Turk life. But that was alright, I really didn't want any close friends.  
I didn't like going out much anyway.  
Sometimes Mister Ious would come by.  
I could handle that, although, a part of me thought that he really didn't exist.  
But his visits were less and less frequent.  
My nightmares were still horrifing, but as time went by, they were less and less vivid.  
Time heals all wounds.  
Maybe even mine.  
Then. Then. I met her. I met Lucrecia. And professor Hojo… We were introduced on a cool and moonless evening, when the wind was howling like a lost wolf. I remember that Tseng was there. He, out of the other Turks, was the most likable. We actually got along well.  
Mister Ious reminds me of Hojo.  
So much so it is weird.  
  
~  
  
"Professor, meet our rookie, Vincent Valentine." Tseng started. Tseng was tactful.  
"Pleasure. And may I introduce my lab assistant, Lucrecia."   
Hojo looked and acted like a elderly voulture. His nose was like a beak, in that it arched over his thin lips. His eyes were beady and bullet like, hidden underneath thick silver glasses. He had a harsh hump in his back, and a demure like a deadly serpent.  
Lucrecia, however, had the kindest, and the saddest eyes.  
When I looked into her face I thought that she had the capability of understanding the poor, sad, and shy man that I am. Or was.  
"Hi." She said.  
"H..Hello. Uh, pleasure. I mean, all the pleasure is mine. I mean, uh."  
"Yeah, well, anyway, Vincent. Get aquainted. I need the reports from you, both. Four o'clock, don't forget." Tseng said as he turned away leaving me with them.  
"Let's get started." Lucrecia said with a smile.  
"Hmm. Yes. Well. We are currently working on something… completely top secret. But of course, I'm sure you are aware of that, Mr. Valentine. The Jenova project. Human uh, experimentations." Hojo uttered while adjusting his glasses.  
I paused for a moment and considered.  
Human experimentations?  
Was that right?  
Blood rushed to my face.  
"Is something wrong, Mr. Valentine?" Lucrecia asked.  
Why should I be asking myself if that was right, anyway? I was a Turk. It wasn't my job to have regard for human life. I was not a philosopher. I worked for the Shin-Ra company. But Lucrecia was so beautiful… Surely, surely if there was a god and he created something so beautiful, there must be value in it all somewhere.  
"Anyway, please concentrate, Mr. Valentine. This is very important." Hojo shot a glare at me with his bullet eyes.  
"Oh… oh, yes, I'm sorry."  
Lucrecia smiled at me.  
Working with her, I thought, will be heaven on Earth.  
Maybe she would find worth in me.  
Maybe there was a reason to live. For now. 


	9. An autobiography of Vincent Valentine (P...

I would like to dedicate this part to one of my readers. I probebly wouldn't have been able to write this unless she clued me in on some of the details in the FF7 game that I forgot.  
It's been a while since I played, and if I had to go through the whole game again just for those stupid little parts before writing this, you wouldn't have been able to read this chapter nearly as soon. Sorry if all the LITTLE bits arn't exactly are as they are in the game. Remember, I'm the writer, you are not.  
Thank you.  
  
  
  
"Know that I love you. Know I don't care. Know that I see you. Know I'm not there." (Nick  
Drake, from the song, 'Know' on the album of 'Pink Moon.')  
  
Nocturnes and Nightmares: A autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
(A interview conducted and re-written by Phoenix Down)  
Part Nine  
Night Stalker  
This is the beginning of a nightmare  
  
I thought she was charming when I met her. On the days that we saw each other, bliss,  
heaven, and joy met together and danced with me. The days that I did not see her became  
overcast, gray, and full of black and silver shadows. The days she spoke to me, heh.... I can not  
describe. There are no words for such pleasure.  
But I knew that she saw me as nothing more than a co-worker. Aquatence, at best. And  
she never knew how enamored I was by her. I was completely smitten. A school boy was I. I  
came home at night and told my cat all about how I felt. That is how stupid I was. I wrote poetry,  
songs, music for her. Yes, she did hear me play them. I had a few gigs at coffee houses and many  
of my fellow Turks and other co-workers came to support me.  
But she never knew those songs were about her.  
Never.  
"The most beautiful thing to me,  
Can be described metaphorically,  
I wonder at first if she has ever seen,  
A great and wandering rooted tree,  
Whose treetops waved, and whose fruit was not lean,  
With a saffron sun overhead,  
And yellow light on the fallen leaf bed.  
The most beautiful thing to me,  
It can only be,  
Described metaphorically.  
I wonder if my love has ever seen,  
A great and prosperous city.  
It's lights would be like winking stars,  
Musical people and car.  
Oh, how lovely the smells are.  
The most beautiful thing to me,  
It can only be described truthfully.  
I wonder at first if she has ever seen,  
Her beautiful face in a looking glass.  
That is the most beautiful thing to me."  
  
Such songs I sang. Romantic? Perhaps. No. You see, I was not the only one who fancied  
her. But her other admirer did not long for her secretly. In that right he was smarter than I. He  
never wrote poetry, or songs, or send her anonymous roses. He just told her how he felt outright.  
I envied that.  
Hojo.  
Sometimes I thought that he just started to fancy her because he knew how I glanced at  
her. I wouldn't mind if it were someone else, but I KNEW that he would hurt her. My thoughts  
became obsessive. She didn't know me. A part of me didn't want her to. I may hurt her. But him.  
HIM. He mustn't go near her.   
It was getting worse.  
At night I worried about her.   
So I left my apartment and went to hers, glance in the windows to make sure that he wasn't there.  
And if he was, he wasn't hurting her.  
I did that once.  
Then twice.  
Work was becoming difficult. He would smile, and laugh. His laugh made his whole ratty body  
convulse disgustingly.  
She giggled. She didn't really like him, not that way. He was too old.  
I was kind, and polite. She liked me. Tolerated me.  
Maybe she didn't like me THAT way. But it was enough when I got a smile.  
I loved her.   
A real love.  
I finally felt something that wasn't hate, or anger and sadness.  
She was beautiful.  
  
~  
  
"You got that down, Vince?"  
She called me, 'Vince.' Not 'Vamp.'  
"Yes... uhm, you know..."  
"What NOW, Vincent?! It isn't your... your SHPEEL on human experimentation, now, is it?!"  
"Hojo, he is entitled to his own opinions."  
"No, it's not that. I could really care less... but... that dial. It's close to the red."  
"Oh, that just means that we should cheak on the climate." Hojo muttered as he twirled a knob.  
He then flipped over a few papers on his clipboard, looked irritated, and started to mutter to  
himself and walk away.  
Lucrecia looked to me and tossed her long brown hair behind her shoulder. She looked a little like  
mother, only younger.  
"He's so... agitated all the time. Ever notice that?"  
"Yes." I sighed. Her eyes were wonders. The universe seemed to sparkle in them.  
"Listen." I started to say before I could stop myself. My face was becoming hot.  
"Just stay away from him. He only wants to hurt you. You got to stay away from him. I don't  
trust him."  
"Vince!" She chortled, "What are you talking about! Your so sweet! I have a fiancée!"  
"...What...."  
"Yeah. His name is Forest."  
"....oh."  
She smiled. I was glad that she was happy.  
But she did ruin my day.  
She then continued to talk about human experimentation's. She said something about being for  
them only for the greater good. I think she said that she knew deep down that I was against them.  
Speak of deep down, she wondered at just how deep I was. I always seemed to be lost in thought,  
thinking about something. But, anyway, Hojo was completely for human experimentation's, but  
this really wasn't human experimenting because no one is really 'alive' per say, but, anyway,  
Vincent, you are really a deep guy and someone wonderful and nice will come around for you...  
are you listening?  
"Huh?"  
"I said, are you listening?"  
"Oh. Yeah. I was. Lucrecia?"  
"Hmm?"  
"I... I don't care that you have, a, you know, I just have to tell you that I lo--"  
"LUCRECIA!"  
"WHAT?!"  
"I NEED you!" Hojo screamed.  
"Oh, uhm, Vince, you want coffee later?"  
"LUUUUCREEECIIIA!!!"  
"Sure. Where?"  
"Uh--" She dashed off.  
  
~  
It was bright out. But I've never seen the sun so dark. She had someone already. I  
should've known. Someone like her was bound to already have a love.   
I suppose that I am happy for her.  
I suppose that I felt sorry for myself. I had a right to be. I... am an unlucky man. I should've not  
waited, and should've not ruined it with Ariel. I could've been happy right now, and Lucrecia  
wouldn't have meant as much to me as she did. I bring it upon myself.  
I walked through the rest of the day in a haze. I felt that someone just socked me in the head with  
a boxing glove.   
Then we met up for coffee at the place that I sang and played piano.  
  
~  
  
"What were you going to tell me?"  
"Nothing."  
"Nothing?"  
"So... uh, how's it with you.. and, Forest, was it?"  
"Can I tell you something?"  
"If you want to."  
"I don't love him."  
"What?!"  
"I have feelings for... someone else. Vince, I trust you. Your... really special. Even when your ...  
uh, pretty reddish brown eyes get all distant and sad. Your a really beautiful guy, Vincent.  
Mysterious."  
Like a BROTHER?! Was that how she felt about me?!  
"So..." I pressed on.  
"So... uhm. I sort of like Hojo."  
"What... Lucrecia... come ON... Hojo!?" I didn't mean to say it like that, exactly.  
"I can't help it. You can't help who you fall in love with." She looked up at me, letting the light  
glint off her huge eyes. My anger began to melt like butter in the sun.  
I sighed.  
"So what about Forest?"  
"That's what I wanted to talk about. You see, I don't know. I just don't know. I... guess I love  
him. He's a really nice man and friend. But... I got these feelings for Hojo."  
"He treats you like dirt." I said flatly.  
"Not really. You should see him alone."  
I folded my arms across my chest. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Preposterous.  
"You look silly like that. Are you mad at me for liking Hojo?"  
"Maybe." I grunted.  
"Vincent..." She smiled, and stretched out her hands on the table towards me. Her fingernails  
were painted, and she wore silver rings and bracelets. I wanted to touch her. But I didn't.  
I said nothing.  
"Vincent. Don't be like that. Putting those walls up. I see right through them."  
I knew she did. I knew that she saw through the cold exterior I was building. That's why I loved  
her. She blew a hole in the tall fortress inside of me.  
"I...I can't. I...I love you, Lucrecia. You know what I do? I... watch out for you. I love you...I...  
want you to be ok. I watch you at night to make sure you are fine."  
She look like she was shot in the stomach.   
Suddenly, her eyes grew wide and watery.  
She stood.  
It was happening in slow motion.  
She ran, and whispered in-between sobs,  
"Asshole."  
...  
...  
...  
...asshole.  
  
  
me.  
  
~  
  
I didn't go to work in the following days. I decided that there was too much drama, and  
that I would come in for the last time on a day I knew that she wouldn't be there. I would have a  
word with Hojo, and then go home. Down beneath the city of Midgar. Back to the hole that I  
crawled out from under.  
Our experimentation's did not just occur at the lab. There was a abandoned mansion in a small   
that we went back and forth from to gather research. It was a mansion owned by Shin-Ra.  
It was a clean morning. I put on my good suit, and shaved. I rolled the words over and  
over in my mind in what I was going to say to Hojo. I knew that it was supposed to be to the  
effect of,  
"Good luck. Take care of her or I will take care of you." Something like that. I was still working  
on it.  
I pulled together all the courage I had. It wasn't much. So I went to the lab.  
The lab was dark, and nearly empty. Wires and tubes gnarled around shadows and each  
other, contorting all about the floor. Far in the back stood Hojo, muttering to himself and looking  
small compared to towering wall of bright and flashing knobs and dials.  
"Hojo?"  
"Who's THERE?!" He barked.  
"I... need to talk to you. About Lucrecia."  
"Oh?"  
Hojo turned around. Although, it was not Hojo.  
"Mister... Ious?"  
"Oh, what are you talking about, boy? Mysterious?! Don't you know my bloody name yet?"  
"No... no..." I backed away.  
"No, no, what? I am professor Hojo, nitwit."  
"Uh..." I paused. It was Mister Ious. But it was Hojo.  
"Lucrecia. Take... take care of her."  
"Oh... OH! I see what's going on, yes. Well, boy, you can't have her. And I will not send you my  
well wishes."  
"Excuse me?"  
"Yes. You know what I mean." Slowly as he advanced upon me, and as he did, his grimace grew.  
His teeth were long, jagged, and gold. His face seemed longer, and his shadows seemed like  
splitted knives.  
"You were an experiment, you know. I am so clever. I know the human body SO well. Especially  
yours. Your perfect, except for your arm. You sliced and mutilated that pretty well. Hm. We can  
fix that. Everything else about my experiment was very successful. Your life, your body, your  
nightmares, were the combination to make the perfect host for my chaos."  
Some beast inside of my chest began to screech.  
Mister Ious cupped his long and oily hand around his ear.  
"You hear that? The chaos beast inside of you is growing. I planted it there, and you helped it  
grow. It is real now. It was once only in existence inside of your... dreams. Your... nightmares. It  
is real now. It is you. Now. You were actually the one that created it."  
The darkness churned.  
The beast burned.  
My nightmares... called.  
Down that dark hallway.  
The fear fled,  
And now all that was once human is fleeting.  
Hello, darkness.  
My only friend.  
"Will you cooperate in finishing my experiment?"  
"Get... get away from me..." I said in a voice that was harsh, raspy, monster like. It was my own.  
"Well, then, I'll move you by force. I'll shoot you in the arm. I don't need it anyway."  
From his lab coat, Mister Ious pulled out a small pistol, and shot me in my left arm.  
I didn't fight the pain that caked my body, I simply fell to my knees.  
And then to the floor.  
It seemed to be the only sensible thing to do.  
  
I woke up. At least I think I woke. I felt more like myself than I ever had before. I was not  
so human any longer. That was the one thing I knew.  
It was black.  
Everything was black.  
And small.  
Claustrophobic.  
I was in a coffin.  
A tumb.  
Then, the stupidest thought came to mind.  
I wonder how my grave was marked.  
Maybe there was no marker.  
I began to wonder what I was going to eat as long as I was going to be here.  
Maybe a worm will wiggle through.  
I can eat that.  
Maybe I should try getting out.  
What the hell?  
Lucrecia.  
That BASTERED has her.  
And it's my fault.  
I sinned.  
It is my fault that she is with him.  
I brought this ALL upon myself.  
Everything.  
My fault.  
Mother is dead, so is father.  
Everyone is dead.  
Lucrecia is now with Mister Ious... Hojo.  
I may as well lie here.  
In this sunken cave.  
And live in my nightmares.  
You may wonder what floated around in my skull as I lied there in the day and night. I  
noticed, I noticed that I was never hungry. The chaos beast that was taking over my body did not  
need food to live. Nor air or water. I'm not sure if he, or I, can die physically.  
My hair grew long and disheveled.  
Maybe Hojo made me into a real vampire. I do not know, I crave nothing except the darkness that  
I made for myself.  
He put me into the cape and mantel Silk made me so long ago. It fitted awkwardly over my  
mouth. He made a bronze claw, after having taken my left arm away from me, the mutilated one.  
And I think, I think that even if I WANTED to play the guitar again, I could not. The claw does  
not move at my will. It simply hangs there, useless.  
I got used to it.  
Perhaps I deserve having it there.  
My eyes were no longer a chestnut brown, but a bright red, reflecting the beast that I fear, and  
comes out at extreme exerts of emotion.  
I feel less and less human as it does.  
Cloud, and his friends came around before. They wanted me to help them save the world. I went,  
but not because of their reason to go. I wanted to rise, and tie up loose ends. Which, for the most  
part, I did. It took a year of my life. Now, that everything is finished, I can perhaps live again. Or  
die. Or simply lie there.  
Maybe one day death will remember me, and come.  
I don't know.  
Maybe one day my nightmares will subside, and my sins will be washed clean.  
Maybe not.  
That is all. It is truly finished.  
Leave.  
  
  
One chapter to go. 


	10. Afterthought

"This is the end, my only friend. The end" (From the song, 'The End' by the Doors, on the album, 'Waiting For the Sun')  
  
Nocturnes and nightmares: An autobiography of Vincent Valentine  
(An afterthought about the interview that was conducted and re-written by Phoenix Down)  
  
Part Ten  
Afterthought  
This is the ending of a nightmare  
  
Mr. Valentine is an interesting character. At first, I wanted to interview him only to find out the mystery of him. The intrigue. I wondered why I was so fascinated by him. I wanted to know what made him tick.  
At first he was completely reluctant to talk to me. He tried everything save physically harming me to get me to leave. Then, oddly, he told me everything without holding back.  
It was a very interesting and disquieting experience to be sitting alone with him in a dark cave like room for hours just listening to him talk. When he finished, I wondered why he let everyone see his cards, not hold anything back. Then, I realized something. He would do anything to stop his nightmares. Maybe that's why he wanted to talk. Maybe it was because if he kept no secrets, he could be more at peace with himself.  
Well, it was worth a try.   
Perhaps that was his line of thinking.   
If we have learned anything from this, it is that we no longer pity him. We are no longer fascinated by him. We now know everything.   
Or do we?  
Maybe he didn't tell us something.  
I've never felt sorry for, nor have I romanticized Mr. Valentine. Never. Maybe that was what made me different, why he let me become so close to him. I recorded every word, and copied everything he said down to paper word for word. I changed nothing. Everything that you read was the TRUTH.  
We wonder what he will do now. Probably lie there in his coffin beneath the Earth, where he knows that he can't hurt anyone and no one can hurt him.  
That's what it really all was about, anyway.  
He's afraid of everyone hurting him.  
  
~Phoenix Down  
Thank you.  
  
The end.  
  
Although Vincent Valentine is a TM and intellectual property of Squaresoft Inc this story is- in all actuallity,  
  
Copyright (c) 2002 Phoenix Down 


End file.
